“How did you find out about this?” she asked.
Olivia shrugged. “I have my ways.”
Her eyes shifted away, however, and the piercing truth hit Mel like a dart in a bull’s-eye.
“You have a spy!”
“What? No, I don’t!”
“Oh my god, look at her face!” Oz said. “She’s totally lying.”
“I am not,” Olivia huffed.
“Then how did you know to dress in that getup?” Marty asked as he moved in front of Mel and Angie, as if to protect them. “Someone tipped you off that they were doing a fifties theme.”
“Listen, old man,” Olivia said—
“Who are you calling old, gray beard?” Marty interrupted.
“Ah!” Olivia took one hand off the tray of cupcakes she was still holding to feel her chin for errant whiskers.
Feeling none, she snarled at Marty, grabbed a vivid pink cupcake off her tray and lobbed it at him.
Marty ducked, and it landed in Angie’s hair and got wedged there like a bird in a nest. Angie wobbled on her feet; obviously the weight of the cupcake in her already heavy hair had knocked her off balance.
“Ha! How’d you like that, princess?” Olivia cackled. “I’ve got one with your name on it, too.”
“Stop calling me princess!” Mel snapped, trying to steady Angie as she listed to one side.
“No?” Olivia asked. “How about I call you b—?”
A white cactus flower cupcake landed with smack-dab precision right in Olivia’s piehole. Mel whipped her head around and saw Marty looking at her with an innocent expression.
“What?” he asked. “I slipped.”
“Nice,” Oz said, and the two exchanged a knuckle bump. “Pitcher?”
“All-American,” Marty said. “You know, back in the day.”
Mel propped Angie against the table. Angie gave Marty an impressed thumbs-up, but Mel knew retaliation—
Smack! A cupcake slammed into the side of her head. The cake thudded to the ground, but she could feel the frosting ooze down her face as it slid out of her short blond hair and landed on her shoulder.
Now she was mad. Mel forgot about Ian Hannigan, the owner of the magazine. She forgot that they were supposed to be here to showcase their shop with a happy, peppy photo shoot. Without thinking of the consequences of her actions, Mel snatched up the spotlighted extra large cupcake in the center of the table and charged at Olivia with a roar reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s character in Braveheart.
Two
“What do you have to say for yourselves?” Tate asked.“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”
Mel, Angie, Marty, and Oz sat slumped in a booth in the bakery. They were covered head to toe in frosting and chunks of cake. They looked like they were the lone survivors of a cupcake massacre.
“But it wasn’t—” Angie protested, but Tate held up his hand.
“Don’t! I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “This thing with Olivia is out of control. It’s a turf war over cupcakes. Now I want you to figure out how you’re going to make peace with her once and for all.”
“What?” Mel hopped out of the booth she’d been sitting in. “But she’s got a spy. She practically admitted it. She’s infiltrated the ranks.”
Tate looked at her as if to say, “So what?”
“Everyone should take a lie detector test,” Marty said. “Mel, I’m sure your uncle can hook us up with one from the Scottsdale PD.”
They all stared at him.
“What?” he asked. “I’ll go first.”
“Marty, I think it’s safe to say that we all dislike Olivia as much as you,” Angie said, “but you’re kind of going around the bend on this one.”
“But he’s right,” Mel said. “We have a leak, and I want to know who is giving out our secrets. If Olivia hadn’t shown up today, none of this would have happened.”
“She has a point there,” Angie said to Tate.
He pushed back the sleeve on his Brooks Brothers suit and reached into her hair to pull out a chunk of cupcake.
“Saving this for later?” he asked.
“Funny,” she said.
The door to the bakery was pushed open with a jangle of bells. Tate glanced up and saw Ian Hannigan stride into the bakery.
“Let me handle this,” he said. “Do not move so much as a sprinkle.”
“Heh-heh,” Oz laughed. “T-man is on a roll today.”
Mel gave him a sour look. “That’s because he doesn’t have gobs of frosting in his underpants.”
Oz wriggled in his seat, and Mel knew she’d made her point.
“What do you think is going to happen to us?” Angie asked. “That Hannigan guy looks very unhappy.”
“Who cares?” Marty asked. “I say it was worth it to chase off that harpy once and for all.”
“Too bad she unloaded her tray on us first,” Angie said, flicking a chunk of icing off her forearm.
“She did look pretty funny running down the street with Mel chasing after her with the ginormous cupcake,” Oz said. Then he snorted.
“I would have caught her, too, if it wasn’t for those stupid high heels. Honestly, platform high heels! I’m tall already; didn’t the wardrobe people realize that heels on me are redundant?” Mel asked.
“He was a dude,” Angie said. “They don’t get it.”
“Still, we got Olivia good,” Marty said.
Mel and Angie exchanged a glance. It was true. Between Marty, Oz, and Angie, Olivia had been pelted with a rainbow of cupcakes until she was slip-sliding her way out of Old Town, around the corner, and out of sight.
“She looked like a B-movie monster,” Angie said. “The Abominable Frosting Monster.”
Angie let out an uncharacteristic giggle, which made Mel chuckle and set off Marty and Oz as well.
Mel tried to stop, knowing that it was bad form to laugh in front of the magazine people. Still, the harder she tried to block the mental picture of Olivia blinking bright yellow frosting out of her eyes, the more it tickled her funny bone and the harder she laughed.
She saw Tate whip around from his conversation and glower at them. She clamped her lips together, trying to rein in her giggles. But then Marty let out a sound like a cork popping before he started wheeze-laughing, which set off Mel and the others again.
The giggle fit was contagious and, to Mel, it was the best therapy in the world. Her sides actually hurt from laughter spasms and, when she finally wound down, she felt relaxed for the first time since putting on those stupid heels.
Tate crossed the room towards them. He was loosening his tie as if it were strangling him.
“Having a good time?” he asked. It was clear that he was not. “Because you are looking at a major snafu here.”
“Buzz-kill,” Angie said.
Tate glowered.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
He was looming over the booth where they sat as if they were a line of kids outside the principal’s office.
“Do you have any idea how much money you have cost the magazine in staff time, equipment, wardrobe, and so forth?” Tate asked.
“A lot,” Mel said, trying to sound reasonable.
“Thousands,” Tate corrected her. “Mr. Hannigan could easily sue us right down to our last paper cupcake thingy.”
“Liner,” Oz said.
“Whatever,” Tate snapped. He was tugging on his ear, never a good sign, and his breathing was coming and going in sharp bursts, as if he’d run a race.
“Well, that seems a bit over-the-top,” Angie said. “I mean, yeah, we made a mess—”
“A mess?” Tate said. His eyes practically bugged out of his head. “One or two dropped cupcakes are a mess, but what you four did was like cupcake napalm. There is frosting all over the sidewalk, other storefronts, cars. You’re damn lucky you didn’t hit any pedestrians.”
Mel hung her head. A quick glance at the others, and she saw that they did the same. Tate paced back
and forth in front of them like a military commander disciplining the troops. Mel tried not to be annoyed, since it was his large financial investment in the bakery that was the sole reason it existed. Oh, business was good and they were turning a tidy profit, but without Tate’s start-up scratch, Fairy Tale Cupcakes would have remained just that—a fairy tale.
“We’ll take care of the cleanup,” Oz said.
“Yes, you will,” Tate agreed. “In fact, you and Marty need to get outside and get going on that. Now!”
Both Marty and Oz scuttled out of the booth and headed out the door. Mel had a sneaking suspicion that they were relieved to have been excused from the firing squad, but she didn’t say as much.
“We should go help, too,” Angie said.
“No. You two, being the faces of the bakery, are going to go over to Mr. Hannigan right now and commence groveling,” Tate said.
“Ooh,” Angie said. “You know that’s not my gift.”
“Well, it had better start to be,” Tate said.
“When did you get all alpha male?” Angie asked. She stood in front of him, glaring up at him. “I’m not sure I like it.”
“Really?” Tate asked. “How would you feel if I told you I don’t care.”
Angie gasped, and Mel echoed her. This was a heretofore unseen side of Tate, and she wasn’t sure she liked it either.
“Do you have any idea who Ian Hannigan is?” Tate asked.
Mel and Angie exchanged a look and then looked back at Tate. Mel knew that Angie was thinking the same thing she was—that they’d show Tate they did, too, know who Hannigan was.
“He owns the magazine SWS,” Angie said.
“And he saved it from ruin,” Mel added.
Mel felt that, despite being covered in frosting they both could be quite smug about their knowledge base in regard to Ian Hannigan.
“Ian Hannigan is one of the richest men in the world,” Tate said. “He is a media mogul. He doesn’t just own SWS magazine. That’s nothing to him. That’s a plaything, a shiny new toy for the moment. He owns Hannigan Inc. Heck, he is Hannigan Inc.”
“Never heard of it,” Angie said.
“Really?” Tate asked. “Well, maybe you’ve heard of the It Channel?”
“Oh, I love that channel,” Mel said. “It’s very cutting edge, lots of shows about technology and new inventions.”
“And maybe you’ve heard of Gan Productions? As in HanniGan?” Tate asked.
“Oh, they produce a lot of good movies,” Angie said. “I particularly liked—”
“I’m sorry,” Tate said. “I hate to interrupt, but there are about fifty more companies under the Hannigan Inc. umbrella that I have yet to mention.”
Mel raised her eyebrows.
“Now do you see?” Tate asked. “This isn’t just some chump who owns a magazine. This is one of the world’s media giants, and you two have really ticked him off.”
“Uh-oh,” Angie said.
“So it’s all coming into focus now,” Tate said. “Great. My work here is done.”
“You know, the sarcasm thing that you’ve got going,” Mel said. “I’m not really enjoying it.”
Tate just stared at her, doing a fair impression of a brick wall.
“It’s just a guess,” Angie said. “But I don’t think he cares.”
“Go. Make. Nice,” Tate said each word as if he’d ripped it off a bone with his teeth.
Mel pushed the frosting-sodden bangs off of her forehead and rose out of the booth to stand beside Angie.
“I hope you’re feeling charming,” she said to Angie.
“With this hair?” Angie asked. “I look like a troll doll. All I need to do is show some belly.”
“Don’t!” Tate ordered.
Angie heaved a sigh. “As if I would. Unless . . . do you think it would work?”
Tate glared at them through eyes that were lowered into mere slits. His face was forbidding enough that Mel was actually happy to go and face the media mogul. Surely he couldn’t be much worse than Tate at the moment, could he?
Together Angie, Mel, and Tate crossed the bakery to where Ian stood in the corner. He had a group around him about three deep, so Mel and Angie stood patiently, waiting for the smack-down that they had no doubt would be delivered in short order.
A woman with blunt-cut gray hair and wearing pointy-toed heels, sheer black hose, and a form-fitting black chemise with a red bolero jacket over it, stood beside Hannigan. He was talking to her, but she had her body turned half away from him and looked to be refusing to make eye contact, which Mel found fascinating. The woman projected an aura of contempt and disdain that was palpable, and Mel felt infinitely more afraid of her than of Ian Hannigan.
Justin stood in front of Mel, so she grabbed his sleeve and tugged. He turned, and she whispered, “Who is the scary woman?”
A small smile played on Justin’s lips; he didn’t have to ask who she was talking about.
“That’s Brigit MacLeod,” Justin said. “Editor in chief.”
“That’s bad,” Angie whispered.
“Really bad,” Mel agreed.
“Do you hear me, Brigit?” Ian barked over their whispered conversation.
Brigit went rigid, crossed her arms over her chest, and studiously ignored him.
Ian turned and seemed to take notice of Mel and Angie for the first time.
“Ah, here they are,” he said. He rubbed his hands together as if in anticipation. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet your new bosses for the next week.”
Three
Mel looked behind her to see if he was introducing someone she hadn’t seen. But no, when she turned back around, Ian Hannigan had his laser-like scrutiny centered right on her.
Once upon a time, Mel had been a corporate minion. She had been a dynamo in the world of marketing in Los Angeles and had been scrupulously working her way up the food chain. When she realized that the only happy moments in her life were her daily stops at her local bakery, she had ditched it all to go to culinary school.
She had dealt with people like Ian Hannigan back in LA. They were cunning and ruthless and had the singular ability to bend people to their wills. But Mel wasn’t in that world anymore, and Ian Hannigan was standing on her black-and-white tiles in her bakery. This was Mel’s turf, and she called the shots here.
“Mr. Hannigan,” Mel said. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Melanie Cooper, one of the owners of the bakery.”
She extended her hand, pleased to see it was clean of frosting.
Hannigan studied her for a moment and then clasped her hand in his. Mel was surprised to feel callus-toughened skin along his palms, and his fingers were large and strong as if he actually used them for more than holding his cell phone to his ear.
“This is my partner, Angie DeLaura,” Mel said, and they shook hands as well. “And you’ve already met Tate Harper.”
Hannigan nodded and continued to study them. His gray eyes were like chips of steel, and he held his jaw out in a stubborn pose as if he’s made up his mind about something and was determined to see it through.
“Ladies,” he said. “This photo shoot turned into quite a production.”
A chuckle sounded in the corner of the room, and Chad, the photographer, looked up from where he was working on his laptop.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I was just reviewing some of the day’s takes.”
Under Hannigan’s unwavering stare, Chad cleared his throat and looked back down as if hoping his laptop had an escape-hatch option.
“I came to this photo shoot to see how my staff worked as a team,” Hannigan said. He looked at Mel. “You own a business. You understand the importance of teamwork.”
“I do.” Mel nodded.
And she did. She had only hired people to work in the bakery who fit in with the irreverent outlook she and Angie maintained. Her team was a ragtag band of misfits bound only by a mutual love of cupcakes; still it was a criteria of sorts, and it seemed to b
e working.
“That fiasco out there showed me one thing,” Hannigan said. “While my people did a lot of pushing and shoving, throwing one another into the line of fire, your people rallied around you and neutralized the threat.”
“True,” Mel said. “But it helps to have a common enemy. Olivia Puckett, the poodle skirt, has been a thorn in our backsides since we opened.”
“I think we can certainly agree on a common enemy,” Brigit said. Her voice was gritty and low-pitched, just as Mel would have expected it to be. Her venom-filled glance at Hannigan left no doubt as to whom she felt the enemy was.
Hannigan gave Brigit a look that Mel was sure would have frozen the blood in her veins. Brigit, however, merely shrugged and gave him a closed-mouth smile that carried more of a threat in it than a knife pointing at his chest.
Mel felt Angie lean against her, and she knew it was Angie’s way of communicating that she saw what was happening as well. Obviously, there was tension at SWS, namely that Brigit MacLeod hated Ian Hannigan, and she didn’t care if he knew it.
“Although a common enemy can be an excellent bond,” Hannigan said, turning back to Mel, “a common goal can be an even stronger bond, because it requires a commitment to a desired outcome.”
Mel glanced at Angie and saw her own confusion reflected back at her in Angie’s warm brown eyes. What the hell was Ian Hannigan talking about?
“It is to that end, that my staff will be coming to work for you, Ms. Cooper,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Mel said. “I must have misheard you. Did you say your staff was coming to work here?”
“Correct,” Hannigan said. “These people need a common goal, something to work towards together, so I have decided that they will learn how to bake cupcakes together.”
“So, like a corporate cupcake boot camp?” Mel asked.
“Exactly,” Hannigan said. “The magazine’s annual community outreach gala is this Saturday night. I think one thousand cupcakes ought to do it, and then we can consider the damage done to this photo shoot paid in full.”
Mel glanced over her shoulder at Tate. He was standing in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest in a fair imitation of Hannigan. He gave her one small bob of his head.
Going, Going, Ganache Page 2
